Lions rookie says he was on the verge of being a starter until injuries spoiled his season, could be big for 2025
The Lions were clearly all in fixing their secondary in the offseason in 2024. They signed Amik Robertson, traded for Carlton Davis, and then took Terrion Arnold and Ennis Rakestraw in the 2024 NFL Draft. The Rakestraw pick felt like a huge steal when it happened. He was someone who was mocked to go in […]
The Lions were clearly all in fixing their secondary in the offseason in 2024. They signed Amik Robertson, traded for Carlton Davis, and then took Terrion Arnold and Ennis Rakestraw in the 2024 NFL Draft.
The Rakestraw pick felt like a huge steal when it happened. He was someone who was mocked to go in the first round by just about every draft expert out there and the Lions wound up getting him later.
The Lions had a plan for him and that plan was to make him a nickel cornerback. They started working on it immediately at rookie mini-camp and then continued that plan through training camp where dividends were already being seen. Rakestraw was picking off everyone to the point where people at camp with calling him Pickstraw.
Rakestraw played mostly special teams in Week 1 and then in Week 2 he suffered a hamstring injury during pre-game warmups and wound up being a late inactive.
Now we know that he was meant to be so much more this season and that hamstring injury was really the start of the problems.
"That was gonna be the Tampa Bay week. I actually was coming up as a starting nickel that week, and a lot of people didn't know that, I got hurt in warm-ups. So it was kind of set back and step back," Rakestraw said. "So now what I just got to do is be available. It kind of was a red-shirt year. But you don't get to pick those situations. Don't nobody just pick to be hurt. You know, I never picked it for myself."
Rakestraw says his plan going forward is to be available and that he spent the season learning from Terrion Arnold and Brian Branch and making sure he can bring the intensity in 2025.
That could absolutely happen. Right now the jury is out on whether or not Carlton Davis will be back and if he's not, Robertson could stick on the outside and Branch can head back to safety while Rakestraw takes on that nickel role. We'll see what happens in the future, but it's safe to say the Lions have a bit of a secret weapon here in Rakestraw.
